New Year Mushrooms
By Daniel Butler, author and forager
We’ve had some harsh weather during the first week of the year and one might have thought this would signal the end of any fungal foraging until Easter. Yes plenty of woody bracket fungi can cling onto their tree hosts for many months, but these are not edible (although a couple have medicinal uses).
The problem is that almost all edible mushrooms have a high moisture content. This means that when the mercury drops below zero the water expands, bursting the cell walls resulting in the collapse of the fruiting body.
Surely there can’t be any mushrooms?
Photo: Author’s own
All is not lost: there are some exceptions. I mentioned a few of the tastiest winter eaters back in October (see Winter Mushrooms), but these (blewits, velvet shanks and winter chanterelles) are now largely over.
There are others, however: a few years ago in early January, I popped in to check that some neighbours were coping with the icy conditions. To my surprise I found two pollarded horse chestnut trunks festooned with oyster mushrooms (Pleurotus spp.) outside their kitchen window.
Oyster mushrooms grow around the year, but don’t like particularly hard weather
Photo: Author’s own
The jelly ear is a third tree-borne fungus that grows around the year. Formerly known as Jew’s ear (Auricularia auricula-judae), this name is now regarded as unacceptable. I won’t get into the arguments for and against the common name change, but because this was informal and relatively recent, most field guides use the old name (and it is also reflected in the scientific name).
Jelly ear (Auricularia auricula-judae) almost always grows on elder
Photo: Author’s own
The problem with all of the above is that – in my opinion – none are particularly gastronomically wonderful. All three (or a near-relative) are used extensively in Far Eastern dishes, but this is generally for their texture rather than flavour.
The meadow waxcap is unusually frost-hardy for a pastoral species
Photo: Author’s own
There are some good eating winter species, however. Waxcaps are a pastoral group of relatively hardy species, but while many are edible, but in my view only one species – the meadow waxcap (Cuphophyllus pratensis) – is a decent eater.
Happy foraging in 2025!